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I have a feeling that there’s more stuff going on this weekend, but I gotta keep it brief and run. Do what the voices say. Do it now.

Friday, May 9 & Saturday May 10

Hotbed: Video Cultivation bestide the Getty Gardens. Curated by Anne Bray of Freewaves, 18 artists’ videos from 1984 - 2007 will be projected on the fancy walls of the Getty Center. Anne was our video curator for last year’s Art on the Waterfront Festival - I totally stand by her curatorial chops, should be good. Artists being shown include Bruce and Norman Yonemoto with Mike Kelly, Hillary Mushkin and Harry Gamboa. The link has a full breakdown of the artists and the pieces being shown. From 7-9 on Friday and 7-10 on Saturday.

Saturday, May 10

Aaron Sandnes and Liat Yossifor, The War Is Over at See Line Gallery. Aaron’s work is new to me, but from his site, it looks interesting. My friend Liat has been working on a series of really intense portraits, referencing very personal and intimate battlefield/military themes. Reception is 6-9 PM.

Foehn Docuents at The Constant Gallery. A show of CSULB MFAs, This show features James Adams, Camilo Cruz, McLean Fahnestock, Matt Ohm, Mariann Marcum, Desiree DeVirgilio, Sierra Brown, Andre Woodward, Summer Merritt, Amy Runyen, and Greg Mocilnikar. I’m familiar with the work of McLean Fahnestock, Sierra Brown and Desiree DeVirgilio, from CSULB MFA show at the Center, Just Can’t Get Enough. Reception is 6-8 PM.

Just Added! Scott Aicher @ California Screamin’ 3 @ Gasoline. California Screamin’ is a “art and hot rod show” in awesomer-than-you-think El Segundo. If actually features a ton of people, but Scott Aicher is the one I’m pimping. Scott was one of the artists featured in History of San Pedro Punk, in my opinion the best of the flyer artists to have worked in San Pedro over the years - his stuff just speaks to my aesthetics, and consistently so. Lots of psychedelic action. From noon to 6 PM.

The Wolf Prince Masqurade @ The Smell. A whole pile of bands are playing, most notably Anavan (video at top), my friend Bret’s noisy trio. There may be a magic show, comedians and other etcetera, as well. Doors open at 9 PM, $10 at the door.

Sunday May 11 & Monday May 12

Where’s Poppa @ New Beverly Cinema. Where’s Poppa is possibly the greatest, blackest comedy, ever. Directed by Carl Reiner, featuring Ruth Gordon, George Segal, Rob Reiner and Garret Morris in his greatest role ever, this movie is not to be missed. I cannot even begin to describe my enthusiasm for this film. For the month of May, the New Bev is replaying their entire May 1978 calendar, in celebration of their 30th Anniversary. Showing at 3:25 & 7:30 on Sunday and at 7:30 on Monday, in a double feature with A Thousand Clowns.

Technorati Tags: art, la art, New Beverly Cinema, The Smell, Anavan, Where’s Poppa, The Constant Gallery, See Line Gallery, Getty Center, Video Art

All my Thailand photos are in the Thailand 2007 Flickr Set. Here are some of the regular cars and trucks I saw around Thailand. I took tons and tons of these, but I was shooting through windshields a lot, and out of a dozen, sometimes only one would be good. I cannot emphasize enough just how awesome Thai car culture is. It’s like Mexican car culture, only instead of being influenced by American car culture, it’s influenced by Japanese and Indian car culture.

Thai car culture is very truck oriented, since rain in Thailand is often synonymous with flooding and monsoons. You want to be high up in that stuff. The one thing I kept thinking about when seeing the flood of brand new trucks, especially the Toyota Hi-Luxes that seem to be everywhere, was the role of the Toyota truck in the success of Mujahideen resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghansistan, made possible by bulk purchases by our then nominal ally, Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, in those messy, early days, right before the blowback started to roll in. The importance of the pickup truck in 4th generational warfare cannot be understated, but that’s really neither here nor there, just what was in my mind at the time.

Above - A Toyota with a Puma cut-out tailgate. Thailand has embraced consumer culture and branding in a way that’s staggering. I would see brand new mopeds with full body supergraphics for Masked Rider, Lipton Tea or Pucca all over the place.

Above - Seen in Kalasin, on my last day in Thailand proper. Buddha statues wrapped in orange and traveling in holy style.

Above - Mobile Buddhism. Every Thai male is a monk for a brief period in their lives, often just a month. Pictures of the King in his month of monastic practice hang in nearly every home. So you’re constantly seeing monks, but most of these guys are just on temporary duty, kind of like religious Army Reservists. Despite the kitschy popularity of the Tuk-Tuk, most Thai buses and taxis are just trucks with special cages in the back.

Above - I figure this is a 1970’s Toyota Corolla. I love 1960’s and 70’s Japanese cars, especially when they have the mirrors mounted way out on the hood. This was seen in Si Racha, the same day I finally realized my life’s dream of eating Siracha Sauce in its hometown, as well as consuming horseshoe crab.

Above - You see a lot of yellow vehicles in Thailand, and because you’re a total gringo, it takes you a full week to realize that they’re all in a particular shade of royal yellow, in honor of the King’s birthday celebration, or just the King in general. This car was seen outside a university art gallery in Bangkok. It was in beautiful shape, and the only Beetle I saw the whole time I was in the country.

Technorati Tags: Thailand, cars, trucks, vehicles, monks, Buddhism

The Big Trucks of Thailand. Being in Thailand last year, far away from California, I was always looking for cultural similarities to reference. It was the vehicular culture of Thailand that made me feel most at home, that I found comforting, even though vehicles take different forms in Thailand, I felt like I was in a car culture. Here’s the trucks.

Above - A mobile movie theatre seen in Eastern Thailand. These go from town to town, playing the latest movies.

Above - Sitting in a truckbed, I saw tons and tons of these huge piles of sticks being transported by truck in Eastern Thailand. These would be piled shockingly high on the trucks. Also, almost all of the trucks I saw were either Isuzus or Hinos. I saw a lot of beautiful Hino grills in Thailand. That’s Danoi on the right, who’s great company in the back of a pickup when there’s a bottle of whiskey to be shared.

Above - A dream fulfilled. These guys gave me a sour look when I took their picture, but I had to shoot this awesome truck with deployable escape motorcycles. Maybe it’s too many Knight Rider re-runs, but dream of driving a vehicle of any sort off of our out of the back of a truck.

Above - The one weird place I asked to be taken while in Thailand was a port. Because I live up the street from a port, I’m kind of obsessed with their operations. My host Jessada was able to take us not only to Kerry Siam Seaport, but deep inside their security cordon, as he talked up the security girl in Laotian, since they’re from the same province. The big difference between the port I live next to is that in America, ports are places where goods arrive and are distributed, but in Asia, ports are surrounded by smokestack cities of manufacturing plants that cluster around to reduce transit costs for the exportation of goods.

Above - Not only is it kosher to ride in the back of a pickup in Thailand, which is something I sadly cannot do in California, it’s totally normal to ride on top of pretty much anything. Any vehicle with a roof is essentially a bus when it needs to be.

Above - These buses are all over Thailand. Lots of people move to Bangkok to work, but maintain regular connections to their families back home, so these buses are everywhere, covered with supergraphics, maintaining the tight family and local connections in the country. Most of these buses also have a little store up front that sells snacks on long rides.

Technorati Tags: trucks, Thailand, travel, bus, movie theatre, mobile theatre, Siam Kerry Seaport, vehicles

A sleazy picture for the insectophile set. Taken on my last day in the village of Yodakeng, in Kalasin, Thailand, back in 2007.

I’m headed back to Thailand for a group show that opens in July (where I think I’ll be doing my final Avian Flu Awareness Project related piece, Year of the Comet), so I’m trying to clear out my backlog of unpublished Thailand travel pics. I still have tons of vehicle photos to post, a photo essay of the buildings and infrastructure of Yodakeng and my trip to the temple on the mountain.

Technorati Tags: butterflies, insects, pornography, sex, coitus, lovemaking, insect sex, Yodakeng, Thailand, travel, love

My fetish for new and better limbs continues, and I must share. I know the guy just has his hand in the glove and he’s tethered to whatever is powering it (It was 1965, give science a break), but man, if it were backpack mounted, I’d have the perfect means to both live out my personal Warhammer 40K fantasy or to get my revenge on those spineless creeps who tore down Spindle in the middle of the night.

For more on the General Electric Hardiman (only the hand ever worked even a little bit - seen above) or other proto-cyborg lifestyle experiments, check out David Zondy’s Tales of Future Past.

Technorati Tags: technology, exoskelton, General Electric, Hardiman, Warhammer 40K, David Zondy, robotics, posthumanism, cyborg lifestyle

LA is the secret second city of American hot dogs, although it comes nowhere near Chicago as the home of the true American weenie. Now the chili dog at Original Tommy’s doesn’t contain a wiener that’s of any note whatsoever, the combination of their dry, simple bun, the dog and their mysterious chili, topped by onions, two huge tomato slices and a pile of pickles is magic, like the G.I. Joe team, it comes together into an unlikely and unstoppable force. Everyone always orders the burgers, but I’ve become devoted to the chili dog. Christ, I love this dog.
Technorati Tags: hot dog, chili dog, Original Tommy’s, Tommy’s, The Shack, food, food porn, chili, delicious

After removing the top two cars, the whole sculpture was torn apart. Dustin Shuler’s Spindle is dead. This is the saddest day in public art ever. I can’t think of anything else to say.

Technorati Tags: Spindle, Dustin Shuler, Route 66, American art, Americana, cars, art cars, sculpture, public sculpture, Berywn, art, shame, destruction, demolition, art crime

Well, on Thursday, as part of my contribution to saving the taco trucks of Los Angeles County, I visited all three of San Pedro’s operating trucks, but I caught one while they were still setting up, so I only got to eat from two trucks. It’s funny, the jerks who are backing Gloria Molina in her effort to destroy this part of Angeleno culture all seem to rant on about roving trucks that are littering the streets and disrupting the operations of brick and mortar restaurants. But every truck operating on Thursday was on private property, and two out of the three were operated by locals. One of those local trucks (the one that wasn’t serving when I cruised by) is actually operated by a restaurant, where they set up in the restaurant’s parking lot and operate in partnership.

My conclusion? The taco truck business model is a varied one, and although maybe the special nature of these eateries requires some attentive regulation, it certainly is one that can live right alongside brick and mortar establishments. On to the food. Oh, and if you haven’t yet, sign the petition!

Above - Right to left - buche, lengua & 2 carne asada tacos. Purchased at Tacos Quiroga, the truck seen at top, located at 14th and Pacific. These guys were a little small, but the buche and lengua that I had were delicious. The salsa at this truck was noticeably better than at the other truck I ate at, as well.

Above - Purchased at the truck that parks in the Goodyear Tires parking lot at 5th and Pacific. This truck was bumping with folks. Everyone was ordering the buche, but I already had some from Tacos Quiroga, so I went with the torta seen below. The asada tacos were for Phill and Michele. I thought the salsa at this truck was kind of too thick, didn’t like it.

Above - A “Torta Cubana” from the 5th & Pacific truck. I like to imagine that Cuban cuisine is diverging under the pressure of isolation and poverty, and the traditional Cuban sandwich has forked into two wildly different sandwiches, one popular with Cuban expatriates in the US, and the above, a weird mishmash that has come from Cuba, through Mexico and ended up on the streets of Los Angeles.

That’s not the case, as far as I can determine, the Torta Cubana usually involves milanesa and fried, sliced hot dogs alongside an assortment of other unrelated edibles, essentially a sort of poverty food/leftovers combo that lurks on restaurant menus, patiently waiting for a chance to surprise, shock or even disappoint the eater. This particular sandwich was notable because of the curiously huge chunk of queso fresco and the thin layer of beans on the bread. It was an awesomely novel sandwich, though.

Technorati Tags: tacos, save our taco trucks, torta, torta cubana, sandwich, taco, buche, lengua, carne asada, Mexican Food, Taco Truck Night, Taco night, food, food porn

Takashi Murakami’s show, Davey Jones’ Tear, opened yesterday at Blum and Poe. Giant Robot’s Eric Nakamura has the story and the Flickr Set. According to Eric’s post, it sounds like everything is already sold, so if you want some Murakami on your wall, it’s Santee Alley time. Thanks, Eric, for making sure to take pictures of the chow.

Technorati Tags: Takashi Murakami, Murakami, Blum and Poe, Davey Jones’ Tear, Eric Nakamura, art, Japanese art, superflat

Fluids was too much fun on Sunday. I’m cross-posting my wrap-up from the Angels Gate blog, for the sake of ice block love and general sharity!

It’s done. Open Studios 2008 has come and gone, a big success, with many happy artists and visitors having had a good time. I spent much of the day working on Fluids, and then lookylooing as it crumbled and melted its way back to the earth. There are just too, too many photos for me to even really do a play-by-play, but here are a few that capture my experience of working on this awesome project. All of our Fluids related images are available for your perusal and enjoyment in this Flickr Set. More will be coming soon, as we hired AGCC Studio Artist Slobodan Dimitrov to photograph the whole event. Those photos will get their own post when they come in and get scanned. Photos from this and every other re-invention of Fluids are visible in LACMA’s Fluids Flickr group.

We started the day by laying out a tape template to mark the outer dimensions of the object. That’s San Pedro artist, educator and occasional DJ Nicholas Klemek assisting me in the process. How to make perfect square corners? If you make a mark three feet (or whatever measuring unit you prefer, my metric brothers out there) from the corner on one side, and four feet from the corner on its neighboring side, and the distance between the two is exactly five feet, then you’ve got a perfect, 90 degree corner. It’s nice to bring some ancient mathematical truth into the construction of any geometric sculpture, don’t you think?

Laying that first block. Just hundreds and hundreds more to go!

Here Allen Teng, an El Camino College I.D.E.A.S. Club volunteer, makes his “ice face” as he hauls a block. Members of the I.D.E.A.S. Club made up the core of our participants, and club President & AGCC preparator Michele Hubacek was my co-coordinator for the site.

Volunteers scoring the ice. The ice surfaces were scored with multi-pronged icepicks to create a better surface for gripping. The woman second from the left in the bucket hat is Toby Tannenbaum, who alongside her LACMA co-worker Michele Urton, made Fluids at Angels Gate a possibility. They were incredibly enthusiastic about doing Fluids in the Harbor Area.

ECC I.D.E.A.S Club Volunteer Meredith Bradfield peeks through a gap in the ice. Meredith’s sister Hillary painted all the Fluids signs, like the one at top, for the event. The signs are going to be on display at MOCA as soon as I run them down there.

How I spent much the process. I did a lot of icepicking to make plugs to fill small gaps (like the one shown above) in the structure. I learned one thing about using an icepick - there’s really no safe pocket or place to carry an icepick, so I spent much of the time carrying mine in my mouth like a pirate.

A happening isn’t really that happening without viewers. I suppose that’s what separates it from an action, and the viewers are anything but passive, which separates a happening from most performance art. These two girls were our official “cutest viewers.” They belong to new Studio Artist Chris James and everyone thought it was adorable when they started tasting the structure.

Lifting ice to the 7th layer. A completed Fluids is nine layers tall. At the 7th layer we made the transition to working on ladders which slowed things up a bit.

ECC I.D.E.A.S. Club Volunteer Geoffrey lays 2nd to last block. Geoffrey really pulled his weight on the top two layers of Fluids, as every block had to be carried up a ladder and carefully placed, and in a hurry.

I got the privilege of placing both the first and the last block. The top two layers were completed in a mad dash, as we were getting concerned that the structure was rapidly melting and losing stability. Building an outdoor ice structure on on of the hottest days of the year is a bit of a pickle. On one hand, it’s blazing hot and you’ve got all the ice you could ever dream of. On the other hand your material is trying to lessen itself as you work with it.

Fluids, completed. It stayed intact like this for about an hour before it really started to melt and collapse. Michele Urton from LACMA remarked that ours was more blue than other structures, that they all look different, filter and reflect light differently. All I know is that it was beautiful while it lasted. I have some theories as to how to build a slightly more structurally sound and longer lasting Fluids, but I need another truckload of ice to test them. Anyone want to give me $3000 worth of ice? Maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to build it all over again.

People came and went throughout the day, so the above group shot is a mishmash of viewers and participants who made this happening possible. Some people signed a wavier just to get the privilege of carrying a single block, and others worked non-stop, from start to finish.

I think when it comes to kids, you can have multiple “most adorable viewers.” Here is Sam and his Pepsi wielding momma/personal mobility unit, El Camino College Professor Karen Whitney, who first brought this project to our attention. Thank the electronic gods for E-mail forwarding!. Behind her and to the left in her “I (heart) Frank” shirt is LACMA curator Michele Urton.

Older viewers like to touch the ice too…

The first part of the structure to really collapse was the “leaning corner.” Our Fluids was built on a slight incline, so this corner was born most likely to fall first.

The corner collapses further. Just like everyone likes to slow down to see an auto accident, the collapse of Fluids makes viewers rapt with attention. I’m hoping someone got an awesome shot of the collapse in motion. It fell apart in about four major collapses, convieniently largely falling within itself.

All that remained at the end of the evening, a filed of rounded, tumbled, melting ice, a park mystery to the people and animals who scurry around after dark.

The recreation of Fluids is coordinated by LACMA and supported in part by an in-kind donation from the Union Ice Company. Happenings were coordinated by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and made possible by generous support from the Getty Foundation. The exhibition Allan Kaprow-Art as Life is organized by the Haus der Kunst, Munich, and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and is on view at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA from March 23 to June 30, 2008. Fluids at Angels Gate Cultural Center was also made possible by the generous support and labor of the members of the El Camino College I.D.E.A.S. Club.

Technorati Tags: Allan Kaprow, happening, Fluids, Angels Gate Park, Angels Gate, AGCC, Angels Gate Cultural Center, Open Studios, art, contemporary art, ice, ice sculpture, sculpture, temporary, I.D.E.A.S. Club, LACMA, MOCA